African oral liereature can sometimes give a glimpse of how our media works.
And it came to pass that Monsieur Hare, who happened to dabble in journalism whenever he was not up to some other mischief, ran out of stories to write.
For there was no big story – nothing to report on The Daily Forest News -t he forest’s biggest newpaper.There was no big news forThe Daily River News either – the most read newspaper in the river beyond the forest.
Be as it may, Monsieur Hare needed a story to file for both newspapers, whose owners and readers, either from a strange form of ignorance or plain boredom, did not seem to notice that all stories peculiary read the same.
So Monsieur Hare scratched his clever head and thought long and hard on a breaking news story. And voila, the bulb in his little clever head suddenly lit up!
“Blisterring bernacles! The big story was right here beneath my nose!” he exclaimed.
With the writer’s block now frimly overcome, Monsieur Hare found Monsieur Elephant calmly foraging in the forest and said: “Ahoy Monsieur Elephant, tell you what, you may be the strongest animal but I can beat you anytime in a tug of war.”
“Oh,yeah”, says the elephant, “bring it on.”
And the Monsieur Hare says: “Let’s meet on Monday at the open ground in the forest and I promise you I will drag your big butt all the way to the river beyond.”
The next day, The Daily Forest News had a story about the big personal duel between Hare and Elephant. And being a forest-only newspaper with dwiddling circulation, the story was not read beyond the forest.
The Hare next went and found the jolly old Monsieur Hippo munching grass by the river and said: “Ahoy Mister Hippo!”
“Ahoy little man,” says the hippo.
Hare says: “You know, they say you are the strongest animal in the river, but I doubt it myself.”
Mister Hippo says: Oh yeah, tell me about it.”
To which the Hare s says, “Here’s the deal: Monday morning, I am challenging you to a personal duel, a tug of war. And I swear by the short tail on my end that I shall drag your obesious bottom from the river all the way to the forest beyond.”
Then the Hippo says: “Oh yeah? Bring it on!”
The next morning it was all over The Daily River News. Hare dares Hippo to a personal duel!
Of course, water being as poor conductor of news, these headline did not go beyond the river bank.
And it came to pass that Monday came, and a great tumult was heard from the river and the forest as a rabble of noisy fans gathered to watch the personal duels.
Nobody found it odd that on this particular day, both The Daily River News and The Daily Forest News, though far apart in terms of ownership and audience, shared the same headline: “Who shall blink first?”
Before then, the Monseur Hare had woken up Elephant to remind him of the big day, and gave him one end of the tug rope.
“If you feel the tug of the rope, that will be me pulling your overweight body all the way to the river,” he said.
In the same breath, the mischeievous fellow unwould the rope all the way to the river bank, and called out: “Ahoy Monsieur Hippo, the big day is here – here’s your end of the rope. I will be on the other end. If you feel a tug on the rope, that will be me hauling your exagellated body out of the river and all the way to the forest beyond.”
We could go on and finish this story, nay, tell you how the tug of war went, and who won, if the story was not so well covered by both The Daily Forest News and The Daily River News for days after the great personal duel under various carefully tweaked headlines.
We will not go into deatils of the ‘The great personal duel’, but we will tell you whose byline appeared in both stories: By Big Bunny.
We swear by the journalists’ creed that this story is true. However, should you be one of those doubting Thomases who takes every story with a packetful of salt, feel free to visit any of our newsrooms.
There you will find Big Bunny behind a computer, busy banging the next big story.
